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INTERVIEW
Mark Wahlberg and Rose Byrne’s comedy/drama film, Instant Family appears to be an instant hit with both critics and audiences alike. Sure, not everyone is a fan, but I suspect that people don’t actually have kids themselves. Those that do, appreciate all of the chaos and (at times) the corniness that is a part of family life. In the movie, Wahlberg and Byrne play a couple who want to start a family, but sort of feel that they are a bit old to be just starting and find themselves looking into foster care adoption and end up adopting a teen girl and her two younger siblings. Unrealistic you say? Try telling that to Sean Anders who co-wrote the script and directed the movie. He lived it. Well, mostly.

I met Anders last week to talk about Instant Family just before the film opened and my biggest question for him was how much of this film was actually based on real life. “A lot of it,” he said and then went on telling me a story about how his family came to be.

It would be easy to excuse and skip The Hundred Foot Journey film as an artsy, fluffy movie that nobody
wants to see. There’s no sex, violence, action or language. Nobody died while
making the film and it isn’t surrounded by scandal. But Journey is one near perfect example of storytelling that would be a
shame to miss

With the look and flavor of an indie film, “Journey” was
funded by the big names of Steven Spielberg and Oprah Winfey, who serve as
producers of the film and was created by DreamWorks. It stars Helen Mirren and
the story was written by Steven Knight, a name not well-known to American
audiences, but is huge in England.

As a comedy/drama/romance, Journey focuses on the battle between two cultures and two
restaurants. The Kadam family, native from India, have been displaced and move
to France of all things. The family business is running a Indian restaurant,
something that seems out of place in France. Papa (Om Puri) finds the “perfect”
location to set up shop – right across the street (one hundred feet in fact)
from Le Sale Pleureur, a Michelin-starred classical French restaurant which is
run by Madame Mallory (Helen Mirren). Madame is sure that new restaurant will
detract from her own and gives a rather chilly reception to the family.
However, Madame has a sous chef, Marguerite (Charlotte Le Bon) who takes a
liking to Papa’s son, Hassan (Manish Dayal) and helps to teach him the finer
aspects of French cooking. Hassan is already a cooking prodigy, so this battle
will be harder to win than Madame thinks.

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MUSICOn September 19, Buzzfeed released an interview with Lisa Gungor promoting her book, The Most Beautiful Thing I’ve Seen. Not only was the title of the video incorrect (“I Stopped Believing in God After Pastoring a Megachurch”) but the short film was edited in such a way as to lead fans to believe that she and her husband were no longer Christians. As expected, the video went viral and as of today has over 1,230,000 views. Concerned Christians, like myself, posted the video on our websites adding to the misinformation and for that I am sorry to add to the confusion.

On September 20, Lisa Gungor posted a correction to the video on Instagram, however, I did not know that it existed until today. In her post, Lisa explains what wasn’t said in the video. She says that she is still thankful that Buzzfeed did the story and even says that while the title bothered her, it apparently only bothered “a few” fans as well, which frankly, I feel is bothersome. Even so, I have to say that I’ve ne…

INTERVIEW
In March 2016, I had the chance to meet Walt Disney Animation Studios animator Kira Lehtomaki who grew up in Edmonds, Washington, not far from my hometown. She was in town for a press tour promoting Zootopia for which she served as an animation supervisor for the character Judy Hopps. She’s one of those people who truly wished upon a star and saw her dream come true. At a very early age, Kira knew that she wanted to become an animator for Disney and today, she’s living that dream.

Recently, I caught up with Lehtomaki again to discuss her time working on Ralph Breaks the Internet (which comes to theaters on November 21) where she served as one of the heads of animation. Although she has previously worked on Bolt, Frozen, Tangled and the first Wreck-It Ralph movies, this was her first time serving as a co-head of animation alongside Renato Dos Anjos. Instead of supervising just one character, she and Renato oversaw the film’s entire animation team making sure that directors Ph…